Range Description

Sicista betulina has a large range extending from Denmark, Norway and Austria in the west to Lake Baikal (Russia) in the east, and from the Arctic Circle south to the Carpathian Mountains (Panteleyev 1998, Pucek 1999). Records from the Ussuri region of China are considered dubious (Pucek 1999). In Europe, isolated relict populations occur in the Scandinavian peninsula, Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein (Germany), the Alps (Austria and Allgäu, Germany) and the Carpathians, but the main range extends east from Baltic Countries, Poland and the Czech Republic into European Russia (Pucek 1999, Syvertsen 2003). In Austria and adjacent Czech Republic (Bavarian-Bohemian forest) there is an isolated population. It occurs from sea level to 2,200 m in the eastern Alps (Spitzenberger 2002).